Out of Sync

I’m not sure what to write by way of an update. In some ways, it seems like there is progress. In other ways, it is the same old thing.

Since the Shower Scene, there has not been a repeat of that. However, I have spent time in the bathroom while she showers and I shave and we can generally talk. Generally. But her gut reaction to me being there remains; get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Over time, that reaction has become more and more pronounced. I’ve asked her more than once if she minded and she said she didn’t but…

The idea of this, from my POV is just to be around each other in an “adult” way without the kids hanging all over us. Being comfortable with each other’s and our own nakedness is a big developmental task. However, I’m seeing her shift back into the old pattern. It isn’t just her being naked around me, it’s her comfort with my nakedness. Now I admit that bleeds over into my own thinking sometimes and it is difficult being naked around her for that reason. I sense her anxiety and unease about it and it gets my own anxiety going. But I get on with it. These times still have this over hanging tension to them, though. I was hoping some familiarity might help alleviate things. Like any other stage of development, when a body first tries it is awkward and uncomfortable but eventually you get the hang of it and master it. Tying your shoes isn’t a big deal anymore once you’ve mastered it. Neither is swimming or running. Getting over the fear of the water involves having some good times in the water over a period of time.

But there is a deeper more pervasive pattern that I am trying to overcome, here. It’s the pattern of avoidance. Yep. I am sick and tired of being an avoider. I am also sick and tired of living with an avoider. Outside of moving out of the house (still an option) I can only realistically control how much of an avoider I am. Arwyn is going to be whatever she is going to be as long as she decides to be that way. I can enrich the environment and put out the salt block, but she isn’t going for it until she decides. And one reality I’m dealing with is the unpleasant realization that she is every bit of a selfish prick as I am. I’ve been in denial about that since forever.

Instead of stayiing up until 1 a.m., I’ve been going to bed earlier in hopes that her and I might be able to share some sort of meaningful time together. That has not happened as she rolls over to sleep as soon as she hits the pillow. Or she stays up after midnight. So I’ve tried the other end of it in the morning, and that involves the bathroom time mentioned above. Typically, I used to stay in bed while she showered and then I would get up while she was getting the boys ready for school. Now I get up when she does, and then I’m synced up with her and the boys. But there have been no gains in the intimacy department there. She gets dressed and out of the bathroom as quickly as possible. This morning as she was darting out I said, “I’m tired of being an avoider.”

“I need to make breakfast!” was her only reply. She was running 10 minutes ahead of her own schedule because she doesn’t work today and doesn’t shower until after we are all gone. She’s got the day to her self.

The avoider theme has been a constant one and it is one that I’m keen to change. I don’t know if I can live like that anymore.

And then there is the ongoing theme of sexlessness. We’re just a month or so shy of another sexless 12 months. There’s a whole lot of other people bitching and moaning about their pathetic sex lives who have sex a lot more often than that! I would rather have no sex than lousy sex, except here’s the thing; how do you know how lousy it is, unless you actually have it once in a while? It would be nice to have a refresher course in Lousy Sex more often than updating my CPR certificate, you know? And there have been no moves in that direction at all, except from my right palm. And once a week is plenty for that. I find myself reaching for that sort of comfort more when I’m feeling in a pissy mood which is quite a lot over the past few days.

I’m rereading the Schnarch book to pick up what I left out or missed. But I know I’ll end up at the same place: the two-choice dilemma. If I stay married to Arwyn it is likely that my sex life will stay the same. That is, there will be no sex. No bad sex, no good sex, no mediocre sex. There will be no sex. Marriage = no sex. I can hold off and see if there is another equation and I can hope for a different outcome and I can pray for a different outcome. But as long as there is no different outcome, there is no different outcome. There’s the way it ought to be and then there’s the way it is. The way it is, is that there’s no sex within the confines of this marriage. That doesn’t mean it will stay that way, but it isn’t moving any time soon.

I’m frustrated and much of that is a rebound from a couple weeks ago. I guess I hadn’t let go of the hope that I cling to as much as I thought. When I see Arwyn NOT trying, that really makes it difficult for me to even give a shit, you know? It’s like the crack addict who is homeless and is always begging money; do you keep giving them a hand out despite the fact that they show no interest in breaking their addiction or getting a job? It’s like she continues to attend 12-step meetings and knows all the lingo but it seems to translate into zero work on her actual marriage relationship.

Basically we’re back to normal which is out of sync, as usual. We spend a lot more time out than in, it seems.

BTW, my weight went down to 187.6 yesterday. That’s a new low of a more positive sort. My ultimate goal was around 185, even though I haven’t been pushing it very hard. I haven’t been working out as much but I’m still eating a lot better.

D.

189.8

I haven’t updated my weight in awhile, so I think I’ll do that for a minute. My weight loss efforts actually do figure into things. This morning I was at 189.8 which is about 3 pounds off from my eventual target. Over the holidays, I maxed out at about 196 but fluctuated between there and 192, which my body seems to like. I work on the elliptical and the step mat but not every day or even every other day. Maybe I get 2-3 times a week if I’m lucky simply because demands at work have been quite heavy the past couple of weeks. I did manage to download Stepmania 4.0 CSV which is a very nice looking release and I like many of the new display features. But it has slowed me down and I’ve had to adjust to it.

When I first began losing weight and posting about it, it was largely driven by my need for better health and a changing self-image. I needed to get rid of the pounds because my knees were driving me nuts. Anyone else who struggles know of what I speak. So I did some research, found an exercise that I adore, some foods that I also adore and went for it. The little “Biggest Loser” competition didn’t hurt either. But somewhere towards the end, I mused on these pages; how much weight do I have to lose to get my wife to want me? It’s at that point that Rod Smith chimed in with a comment that I really needed to get Passionate Marriage. I had been following 2amsomewhere’s posts on the subject and was somewhat familiar with Schnarch and his writings from lurking alt.support.marriage. This name would come up on other relationship blogs on occasion also.

In November Rod and I did make efforts to contact each other by telephone. One time I woke him up after he was asleep! He was very nice about it, and told me to call back earlier the day the next day, which I did try but got an answering machine. He left voice messages on my phone as well as by email. I’m okay with all of this because just knowing he was there was sufficient. Plus I got the book and figured after reading it I might have more to talk about afterwards. The point being that I was too busy (and careless) to even make a phone therapy connection but as it turned out his advice was spot-on. He gave me a small shove in the right direction.

The last time I had a major discussion with Arwyn, it was almost like an assault or a guerrilla attack. It was short and a skirmish that left more questions than answers and certainly didn’t do anything to make me feel better about our marriage. It was bad timing all around.

This time, it was not planned at all. I went to the store after work and she and the boys had gone to church. We got home about the same time and she put the boys to be while I got ready for the next day. I was tired and was ready to go to bed. This is highly unusual as she normally goes to bed early and I stay up late, mostly after midnight. She was in already bed when I came in the bedroom. I sat for a minute contemplating whether to turn in or go back to the living room and turn on the computer. I laid down and attempted to snuggle up to her in the inverted position. To my surprise, all I found at the foot of the bed was her legs. Her hands reached down in the dark and moved over my legs and bum and wondered what i was doing. I switched positions, feeling a bit embarrassed but was able to snuggle without her moving off. And then we began to talk.

At first it was about her church, where the senior pastor is taking a leave of absence “to recharge” and another pastor there just left the ministry with no known explanation. More casualties of “church.” I shared with her my evolving views of church. She’s known that my views were under construction, as it were. She thought I was fancying starting my own church as part of a “house church” movement. I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but I’ve come to realize that conflict is just part of the growing process. Leaving and starting a church would be a futile attempt to escape and avoid that growth; there really is no escape anyway because conflict is inherent in me. And to carry this where I’m going, leaving my marriage for someone else wouldn’t solve my conflicts because the conflicts that I have with Arwyn are conflicts I have with me.

In that sense, it is about me and my own deficiencies. Confronting my own mess has been a major part of this process. Meanwhile, Arwyn has been working on step 4 in her 12-step program for the second time. This step closely mirrors the process that I was going through as I was learning to confront my own issues. We were going through identical steps at identical times. We did discuss this process. Arwyn went through all 12 steps last year, and I knew she was doing it. I waited for step 8 and step 9 to come around. It never did, at least for me. So when she told me she was doing the 12 steps again, I was skeptical that it was doing her any good at all as she was obviously in some deep, deep denial about what she was doing to me.

She admitted that she had “forgotten” to deal with me in those steps, and I corrected her and told her she had most likely simply chosen to avoid it altogether. She admitted to that and we went into a discussion about our avoidance issues and the fact that we were both first class avoiders. One of the major problems is that neither of us was interested in listening to what the other had to say and so we simply avoided the major issues. We agreed that this was likely something we both acquired from our respective backgrounds and that we would need to work in order to overcome that. Much of arwyn’s avoidance stems directly from issues I brought up in that long thread “XH and Me” where most people forgot all about the “me” part and wanted to talk about XH. Fact is, I have many of the same exact issues as I related there. My brain allows me to intellectually out-flank a whole lot of people and I have my own sense of moral rightness that makes others feel small, stupid and wrong. I can effectively use this to keep people from getting too close and intimidate them while beaming with pride when others tell me how great a Sunday school teacher I am or how great and smart I am in general. Smartness is a long way from wisdom, as evidenced by me stupidly asserting my moral and intellectual superiority over my wife.

Nothing says “I love you” like making a person feel small, stupid and wrong.

Keep in mind, this intellectual power was what fueled her initial attraction to me. She came to the young adult Sunday school class I was teaching and really liked my teaching skillz. She was hungry for knowledge and saw me as being a person who had a lot to offer her.

But later, she always felt judged and controlled by me, and gave up arguing with me a long time ago. To wit: I was always “right” and she was always “wrong.” My “rightness” pretty much put us on a collision course with disaster. God was using my marriage to wring that self-righteous pride out of me. I’ve still got plenty of it so there will be more wringing, I’m sure. But avoidance was about her only choice, as she saw it. She felt she was always walking on egg shells around me. Yeah, I see it, now. I really was judging her and found her wanting most of the time. The more she withdrew from me, the more I judged her as being inadequate which pretty much guaranteed that we would overheat and become disconnected. There was no such thing as a “discussion” because differing views automatically made us adversaries and if I become an adversary with anyone, I play to win. This is not a winning strategy for making friends and influencing people.

For her part, Arwyn had her own way of winning a fighting which was almost a form of emotional jujutso. To wit:

Jujutsu evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan as a method for dispatching an armed and armored opponent in situations where the use of weapons was impractical or forbidden.

My emotional fusion made me an easy target for this sort of thing. While I was using my intellect, she was using my own heart against me.

We talked about the whole business of marital sadism. I have a sadistic streak so wide, it’s pretty pointless denying it. Arwyn heartily agreed with that. But the real revelation to her was when I talked about my struggle in dealing with her sadistic side. And that opened the big can of worms that you have all been waiting for.

I told her that based on Passionate Marriage I had figured out that early part of our relationship that was so vexing to me. Namely that we were having sex all the time and then after we were married, sex had dwindled to pretty much nothing. The reason for that early sex wasn’t desire, but it was insecurity. Arwyn and I share very rich, deep wells of the fear of abandonment. Her sexual behavior was her attempt to avoid that whole abandonment scenario, and so it was all fueled by her insecurities. She would have sex even though many times she didn’t want to because insecurity reigned. However, she was also feeling guilt and shame over our premarital sexual behavior. By the time we actually got married, the shame and guilt had grown to a point where it overcame her insecurity about our relationship. Once the commitment of marriage was finalized, that insecurity disappeared but the guilt did not.

On top of this, we can add a generous dose of resentment. I was pretty much in total reptilian mode in the early years of our marriage. I really liked sex, and my self worth was totally tied to it. If we had enough sex, I felt loved. When I didn’t, I felt rejected and unloved. Arwyn’s self-worth was also tied to sex. But the more sex we had that she didn’t want, the more she felt used. She felt that in my view, sex was the answer to all our problems. She was pretty much right. She resented me for my controlling ways and then wanting sex on top of that. At the same time, her guilt increased because now I’m really making her feel like the bad wife.

And then we tried to fix each other. A classic example of this is the 3^rd year of our marriage, Arwyn bought Relationship Rescue. She went through about 4 chapters and then didn’t read anymore but did leave the book lying around thinking I really needed to read it. I did glance over it back then and thought it wasn’t too bad of a book for her. Two years later, I picked it up off a dusty shelf and then went through every single exercise. When I came to her at the appropriate time and attempted to follow Dr. Phil’s advice, she really wanted nothing to do with it. A few months later, I bought her the workbook for her birthday. That workbook has never been opened. To say she regretted buying that book is an understatement! She bought it with the idea of changing me, but when I did do it, she resisted it! Because it was another case of me controlling her, she wanted none of it.

A major part of this discussion involved our differing ways of getting to this point. Arwyn does better as part of a group-type structured process where I am able to get stuff from a book and learn independently. I went through Dr. Phil’s book alone. I was able to exercise and diet and lose weight without weekly meetings. I was able to discover and apply vital things from Passionate Marriage without a therapist or a support group — apart from my blogger friends, of course! I play with computers with very little in the way of classwork. I even play around a bit in Linux just getting things off the internet. But this is not at all typical, which is what makes me exceptional as a teacher. It’s what makes XH able to do much of what he does. But it also results in some problems relating to others who are not on the same page. I get exasperated at others for being too slow. Arwyn seemed to always be too slow and she didn’t appreciate me reminding her of it. Her going and finding her own group of friends in a different church through a 12 step group seems to be just what was needed for her to work on herself. And she has been doing it with the help of the group and her sponsor. It was helpful having my own background in 12 step groups because much of what Schnarch talks about translates fairly easily into 12-step-ese. I was able to share what I had learned from reading this book pretty much what I shared here. Writing has been another vital part of processing what I’ve learned and I’m getting better at harnessing that in order to internalize and retain it.

I shared with her my revelation about her own sadism in watching me suffer all of these years in virtual sexlessness, knowing perfectly well that I was suffering. She stood by and watched and participated in it while doing nothing or even rejecting my efforts to resolve it. I treaded carefully here, because I knew this was extremely sensitive territory we were in. Almost every previous discussion of sex has resulted in her and I both getting defensive and her totally melting down. But she did not meltdown at all. She took the hit and held it together. That was truly an amazing thing to witness.

Then we got to some nitty gritty. Basically, for pretty much our whole marriage, the sex has been awful. I did point out that she might have been ahead of me in that department for not wanting bad sex, while I was willing to ask for a double portion of it. She pretty much agreed with my assessment: it’s not that she did not like sex. She did not want it from me. It took me all this time to really figure it out to a point where I could deal with it and handle that without falling apart.

This is what emotional gridlock and critical mass does for a marriage. It makes emotional fusion such a totally untenable position that we are forced to move away from it and grow like a hermit crab that outgrows its shell and has to shed it to go find a new one. We were both ready to listen because the alternative was too much to take.

We discovered that we were on the same page in a lot of areas. We both wanted good sex and not bad sex. We each affirmed the right of the other to avoid bad sex and go for good sex. What entails “good sex” was not discussed, however. Just getting to this point was nothing short of monumental. I told her that I wanted to pursue that with her. I think the act of choosing her was an important one, at least for me. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly done that, before. Honestly, it comes to me that I’ve accepted her, settled for her, preferred her, cared for her, tried to win her, and done other things. But I don’t know if I’ve ever truly chosen her. She asked me out the first time we went out. Schnarch did write extensively about this, and I’m going to have to look it up again as it didn’t register first time through and i didn’t write about it because it didn’t hit me.

Moving on to better sex might be a daunting challenge, but I think she might be up for at least approaching the challenge of it. She seemed to be very open to it last night at least. No we did not have sex. By the time we concluded, it was already 1:30 a.m. and we both had to get up early and I was tired before we started the conversation. But we were snuggled together and touching and holding hands and it really was probably more intimacy than we had shared at any other time. Hence the proposed title “This is the most significant conversation we’ve ever had” which is a statement Arwyn made.

We concluded by deciding that we would avoid more positively. Namely that we were going to avoid avoiding these sorts of conversations in the future!

D.

191.6

Okay so we went up a bit over the holidays, but this is not a big huge concern.  I figure I’m allowed to fluctuate around 5 pounds or so, which I’ve always done.  I just need to remain focused on the diet and exercise.  In fact, as I shift my training a bit, I expect some modest weight gain as I develop some muscle mass.  And that’s really where I’m going next.

While my smallish gut still wants to hang around, I notice that it only protrudes the way it does mostly because I have no chest!  And that’s where I really need to focus some effort.  The problem is the same with every other exercise that I’ve done, which is finding something I like.  So I’m trying out a variation on my Stepmania program, which involves doing it with my hands instead of my feet.  Basically, I’m doing a modified push-up until I get enough endurance up to do it regular push-up style.  I notice that I do get a decent upper body workout over a period of several songs at the lower level by virtue of having to change the position of my hands all over the mat.  The biggest pain is that having a computer monitor that suits me for using my feet on the mat doesn’t suit me as well when I’m on the floor.  I like that I have to hold my head up, but my neck gets a bit extended in that position.  I might end up using a laptop when working the upper body.

Progress on the other storyline remains glacial, at best.  After our talk, Arwyn does make an effort to sleep with her head at the head of the bed (still under her own blanket) but will often switch back during the night.  She’s having some sinus problems which results in her snoring loudly but for some reason this doesn’t bother me nearly as much as my snoring bothers her. 

Other updates are in the works, but I figure I’d at least give you a taste. 

 

D.

 

189.8

And so the adventure continues.  I’m close.  Very, very close to having a BMI considered “normal” for my height.  That Biggest Loser contest I was in was supposed to wrap up last week, but turned out to be a total sham.  Out of 25 people who weighed in, only 4 people paid!  The guy organizing it was too lackadaisical in collecting money.  He just said they good pay whenever as long as they paid before the winner was announced.  I told him that wouldn’t work for the reason it didn’t.  It happened just like I said.  People waited and worked for a few weeks and when it was apparent that someone (me) was making progress and they weren’t, they quit.  So he put the option of continuing until February, but no one else was going to pay into that sucker bet.  I’ve lost almost 40 pounds in 15 weeks!  So in the interest of competition, I resigned from it and told him to keep the money for the next contest, if there is one. 

 

Just the idea of competition was enough to spur me on enough so now I’ve come far enough it isn’t that big of a deal.  Yeah, I was the clear winner, but I’ve come far enough that I consider the $30 money well spent.  I don’t care about the money or a title.  Everyone knows it, and I shared my stats and story on the company bbs so all could see it.  Maybe it will spur people on, what with this being National Diabetes Awareness Month.

 

At some point I’ll probably stop posting every little update here.  But then that means I’d have to write about something else!  My hat is off to Finished Last who sort of helped inspire much of this plan.  It was amazingly simple: 1000 calories for meals and 500 for snacks.  I went bonkers for fiber and found a workout activity I liked.  Climbing the 1.3 mile trail at Stone Mountain is a good one, too, for me because I can save a knee or two by taking the sky lift down.  The kids actually like doing that one, too.  Arwyn not so much.  Which is why she got time for herself today while the boys and I went.

 

I ordered The Passionate Marriage from eBay, since everyone seems to be raving on it and I’ve enjoyed some excerpts shared by 2Amsomewhere.  In the meantime, I notice Arwyn I moving into a somewhat better spot in our relationship.  We’re having more talks and discussions beyond kids and jobs to a point where it’s almost pleasant and enjoyable. 

 

One point of discussion did come up about her workplace.  She found out that someone she used to work with was actually fired from the job.  She didn’t know that.  She got a bit upset when she found out why.  Apparently this coworker had a MySpace page and was blogging about kids and coworkers using real names.  A parent got hold of it and soon the offender was bounced out.  Arwyn saw this as a serious infringement on her privacy and Googled around looking to see if her name came up.  She felt totally uncomfortable with the idea of her privacy being invaded like that.

 

Oops.

 

She does know I have a blog, and I’ve shown it to her.   A different universe. It’s actually more work related and since I don’t use any real names it’s not likely anyone would I.D. it.  But she still feels a bit insecure about it. 

 

This blog would totally be uncool with her.  It’s been a total avenue of support for me in so many ways, I can’t imagine NOT having it.  But I’m considering not having it.  Maybe I’ve used it as too much of a crutch.  Maybe I need to get out more in real life. 

 

I could still retain Unsolicited Advice as I purposefully set that up to NOT be so personally relationship/sex centered. Yeah there’s sexual content there, but it’s not in any way a daily account of my personal life.  There’s some personal history in the WordPress version, but it’s not anything too aversive. 

 

I think Arwyn’s concerns are somewhat valid.  This hyper-secretiveness is a trait we both sort of share and is at the root of many of our problems.  We keep a lot of stuff from each other and neither probes too deeply lest we end up getting probed ourselves.  But it’s caused problems, obviously.  But perhaps we can move out of that pattern a bit if by just having less stuff to hide.  While I’ve taken reasonable precautions in keeping stuff on the down-low stuff still happens.  Despite the stuff I’ve shared here, I’m still a pretty secretive person.  So I do understand some of where Arwyn is coming from even though her concerns sometimes cross over into full-blown paranoia.  Sometimes it is misplaced, like she refuses to do an encrypted online transaction out of security concerns but has no problems giving her card to the teenage waitress in the restaurant.

 

Seeing C-Marie give her swan song has me thinking about this place, and the 3 other places linked here with the lights still on.  How long do I keep going? 

 

I know most of you have felt the urge to close things up on occasion.  What keeps you in business?

 

D.

 

Counseling, a Meme and 195.4

I’ll just weigh in a day or two early and then go get something to eat!LOL!

2amsomewhere recently did a purpose driven meme and tagged me with it. Actually, I was already on my way over off the link before I saw I’d been tagged. It’s a survey put on by some of his friends at the Schnarch Center about relationships and sex. The purpose of this is to normalize their results and to test it, so there aren’t any results to be gotten, unlike the little quizzes in my “About” page. However it does make a body think about what they think.

In order to make sure that these two instruments are reliable and valid with a large and diverse population, we would greatly appreciate it if you would cut and paste the link on to your website or forward it to your friends. We want a diverse population in terms of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age and gender!

So these are 2am’s rules:

1. Take the survey described above.
2. Create a blog posting announcing the survey.
3. Tag seven other bloggers to take the survey by listing them in your post and contacting them by either e-mail or blog comment.

Only one more thing to do, which is #3. Seven seems like a high number to me, but let me see if I can find the 7:

1. Christian Husband
2. FTN
3. Confused Husband
4. Xi Summit
5. Tajalude
6. Hazel
7. Mu Ling

Hey, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be! I’m sort of worried about the results being all skewed and dysfunctional due to the nature of my blogroll, though.

And finally, just wanted to share something I found on Rod Smith’s blog that was enlightening. When Will Counseling work Best? When will it not?… is a pretty fair and balanced treatment of the subject. Lot’s of you have weighed in, and considering the results of my last post I thought a fair treatment of the subject was in order. I think the biggest obstacle at the present time is …well… time. If I was really sick and injured, I would go to see a doctor. But I’d have to really be sick or injured. I’ve got sore ankles and knees and sometimes get the sniffles, but I’m not seeing anyone.

So that must mean that things in my relationship aren’t bad enough. Yet.

Yeah, that pretty much sums things up. I mean if they were all that bad I would more seriously be weighing the therapist/attorney options. But Arwyn has become a better roommate than she was a year ago. There is that much progress, which is better than none at all. The house isn’t all run down when I come home and it is manageable enough that I can help out when needed. It’s easier to cook in a clean kitchen. We are talking better about money. Every month, we are going over her credit card balances and we each write out checks. We probably need to expand that conversation a bit more about other expenses but there is movement. The sex thing is just a big, huge boil that irritates everything else. I’m not confronting her at all because while I’m attracted to her physically I’m not up for the “mercy fuck.” I was hoping my weight loss would help lessen the “mercy” part of it for her, so she might actually want to do it more. Or maybe I haven’t lost enough, yet.

D.

I’m in the process of properly tagging everyone by commenting on their blogs, so if I haven’t gotten to you yet, consider yourself warned!

[Now I know why I don't do more comments and tags...blogspot word verification SUCKS!  I ALWAYS end up having to type goofy crap out several times!] 

34

That’s not my weight, that is my new, official, waist line!  I bought some new blue jeans on Friday because I needed something to wear on Saturday.  A 34 was taking a big chance, but I went for it.  They are pretty tight, but I wore them all day and felt plenty fine. 

 

My weight this morning was a nice 193.4.  We went to Stone Mountain for our Saturday adventure and my youngest and I did the walk-up trail.  Nowadays, it’s really the only reason I go, as it seems Arwyn and the kids spend most of the time whining about being hungry or thirsty.  We did do a ton of walking and much of it was done with my youngest on my back.  That really was a good workout!

 

I’m getting reluctant to follow the relationship story line, because it seems to be a long string of just the same crap.  Which means the comments will be the same sort of stuff.  So just to make it easier, I’ll let you choose from a standard list:

 

A. Get counseling, now!

B. Find someone else.

C. Move out/separate

D. Confront her directly

E. Ditch her, get a lawyer

F. Communicate more/better

G. Get over it

H. Get some anti-depressants

I. Lock up in the chastity cage

J. Accept her just as she is

 

I’ll keep adding to the list as we go, but the above are all things I’ve seen before more than once.

 

This week I’ve been pushing limits just a bit.  In wee hours of the morning, I’ll snake my hands under her blanket/rug  and let my hand wander around.  And she’ll put her hands on mine to get them to stop moving/advancing.  As soon as she shows any sort of resistance, I stop and withdraw and retreat…until the next morning.  So while I might test the boundaries, I’m not overstepping them. I’m just reaching out and trying to keep an open door and open mind.  But she is not really responsive to any physical intimacies. 

 

For those keeping score at home, we had sex back in March and then before that it was December of 2005.

 

The last time we had a conversation about the subject, I mentioned that celibacy wasn’t working for me.  She said she didn’t really like it either, which was such a surprise I had no comeback or response.  In several opportunities, she has not once responded with any sort of willingness to put an end to it.  We did actually spend time hugging and kissing and snuggling Monday morning.  I really had to press, but she did kind of respond to that.  But it never went further as she responded only to a point.  And then the rest of the week just sort of went down hill.

 

I’m just trying to figure it out.  I have a body she’s never seen before, much leaner and well put together.  But this had zero effect on her libido.  I’d think she might at least be curious.  But there’s zero interest in my body by her.  I’ve always been interested in her and she is still as slim as ever.  I wouldn’t think my weight loss would be any threat to her that way. 

 

There doesn’t seem to be any jealousy factor that I’m aware of at least in the way Desmond spoke of it with his own weight loss.  I just don’t get the impression that she would care if other women looked me.      

 

Arwyn has recently finished her 12 step group after attending for the past year.  She has apparently been through all 12 steps and is joining a different study group.  She goes on and on about how this has helped her get closer to God and how she wishes I would do it.

 

The thing is, is that I don’t see it.  While she spends more time at church, I’m not seeing much fruit within our marriage or relationship.  She still sleeps apart under her own blanket/rug facing the foot of the bed.  She still has no interest in sex/intimacy.  She has voiced some concern about this.  However those concerns were addressed in the context of me initiating the conversation.  None of that addresses Steps 8 and 9 in the 12 step protocol.  I’ve been waiting to see whether or not she would, and it hasn’t come to pass at all.  I’ve been a part of 12-step programs before and know how it is supposed to go, but I also know how powerful denial can be.  Go sell crazy somewhere else, I’m all stocked up.  I’m not perfect and might could do some sort of program like that but I’m not in the mood to by this particular bill of goods at the moment. 

 

Exercise is a wonderful tool for working off depression, anger and frustration.  Those emotions have fueled some pretty heavy workouts this week.

 

D.

198.4

No, that’s not a misprint.  For the first time since starting this little adventure, my weight has remained the same on weigh-in day.  Actually, Monday morning happens to be the worst day to weigh-in for me because I don’t always exercise on Sunday and often end up snacking and eating heavier on weekends.  In my last entry I had dropped a couple extra pounds but rebounded in the meantime.  But I’m not making a huge deal, yet.  I’ll just work a bit harder during the week.  I’m thinking I’ll see if I can get my stepcount up in the 5000-7000 range per workout.  That represents almost a full day’s regular walking beck when I wore a pedometer.  Getting it done in 30-40 minutes is the trick.

 

Moving on…

 

Christian Husband recently wrote about hating group projects, which is a loathing I share.  But there is a type of schoolwork that I hate even more.  That would be The Project project.  You know the ones.  They often involve constructing miniature nuclear reactors, scale models of windmills or some other silly craft work.  I remember in 7th grade social studies, we had to make some sort of tool.  Someone made a wooden waterwheel.  Someone else made the windmill.  Others made assorted crafts that required lathes, table saws, arc welders, soldering irons and oscilloscopes.  I cut a tree branch, bent it and tied the ends with a string.  Found a straight stick, sharpened it and voila! Bow and arrow. 

 

In 8th grade, we had a similar project that involved making something from the 1800’s.  I made a model of a still with tin foil, oatmeal containers and straws.  It wasn’t very neat or flashy compared to everyone else’s, but it was definitely made by me.

 

I hated these crafty projects, because my parents were mostly busy making a living on the farm and these things always seemed to take place during harvest or planting season.  So it was up to me to do the things on my own which meant I was most definitely not be using the arc welder or the power saw.

 

Thanks to parenthood, I get to relive this insanity.  My oldest, Thomas, who happens to be in the second grade, was assigned a project involving doing a report on something in the solar system.  This involves having a visual aid.  He was assigned “Earth” so at least it wasn’t too exotic but also not terribly interesting. 

 

Today, Arwyn tried to help him construct a model of Earth using homemade play-doh.  But she discovered halfway into the prroject that we didn’t have enough salt.  She still made a go of it, so we’ll see if it gets painted or not.  Next, she went out and bought poster board, getting home late.  

 

After doing some work on the posterboard, They went off to do something else.  Then my youngest found a marker and drew artistic squiggles on the poster.  AAARGHH!

 

Did I mention that this thing is due tomorrow?

 

Yeah.

 

I HATE these things.  Regular homework is bad enough.  This project junk is for the birds, because parents end up having to lay out the money for supplies and do a great deal of the work.  It’s like the group work only you’re doing it for a course you’ve already taken and and someone else gets the grade.  It becomes less about the kids and more about the parents.  No wonder more parents are choosing homeschooling.  At least then you get to choose the project.

 

D.

A Commotion in the Bedroom

Actually, if there is one, I have no idea.  I just put that out there to be teasy and witty.  It’s not that there shouldn’t be a commotion in the bedroom right now.  There should.  but there’s not.  At least not with me in it.

I’m listening to some xtian trance music that I ordered a couple of weeks ago and it came in today, of all days!  And it is pretty cool.  Arwyn likes Christian music just because of the words and not necessarily the music itself.  But this is still too rich and fast for her blood, and she said as much after listening to a bit of it.  I’m the opposite, where I like most genres of music but just because it is Christian rock or contemporary doesn’t make it good.  In fact, a lot of it is pretty hideous.  Most of this is stuff that I like and will eventually get it tricked out with some steps for the dance pad.  It takes several hours of some maximum CPU power to get just a few songs rendered and I’ve got about 7 CDs here.  Tonight I began converting them into mp3’s to get them ready.

This morning I was somewhere in the 196.8 range but tonight I suspended the workout activities in order to eat some cake with the boys.  They were all excited and could hardly wait.  Arwyn could NOT wait as there was a big, giant strip of cake missing on one side.  She’d have gotten away with it if she hadn’t frosted the thing first.  Oh well.

Now that I’ve got some new music, I’m anxious to get back on the mat again and work it out.  I’ll have to really work hard and punish the body a bit for my indulgence but I figured, “What the heck? Why not indulge a bit just once?”  After all, other people do it it, some more often than others.

Too bad I have to work in the morning, otherwise I’d have had a beer or two or three with my cake and my new music.

I’ll give a more detailed account later, perhaps.

D.

1984

Oh, wait…that’s 198.4!

 

The progress continues, despite some unruliness in my diet.  As the holidays begin gearing up, it’s going to get harder to travel the straight and narrow.  But I’m thinking that as I build muscle tone and as muscle becomes a larger percentage of my body mass, maybe I have a little more leeway.  I hope so!

 

Arwyn had a gift card for Applebee’s that she’s had since last Christmas and it was burning a hole in her pocket so we all went out to eat Sat. night.  She pointed out the section of the menu for Weight Watchers, for which I was somewhat grateful.  This was about as much acknowledgment of my weight loss effort as I can expect from her. 

 

My co-workers who have been going on and on about my improved shape all want to know what Arwyn thinks about it.  I’d like to say she loves it and can’t keep her hands off me but that simply isn’t the case.  I say she knows about it and approves and that’s about it.  I like the compliments from the ladies at work.  It keeps me motivated.  But looking good is not sufficient to light the fires of an unmotivated spouse.  I’ve seen the HNT’s of Oblivion, C-Marie, Tajalude and most guys would give both nuts to be with women that look that good.  So looks don’t do it, even to get guys going who are supposed to be all visual. 

 

Last week I went ahead and bought a pair of black jeans and they did look good!  Size 36, which this body has not seen in at least a decade and maybe longer.   It was nice to be wearing something that actually fit instead of being sort of loosely draped and cinched up.  It’s also what I wore to the restaurant Sat. night. 

 

Just to extend the post on my Unsolicited Advice blog (the much-neglect blogspot one) I imagine getting the female members of my imaginary invisible audience all hot and bothered!

 

Silly me doesn’t have any good before/after HNT type shots as I was entirely too embarrassed by my “before” body.  So with no comparison, I’m just another bloke on the street.  To put it another way, I’m not built as good as Tom Allen but might get comparable if I suck it way in and puff my chest way out!  And I have some serious work to do before I get in a similar league as Figleaf.

 

But perhaps that might be my next lark. I might take a series of pics and occasionally post them in the name of selfish and indulgent vanity.  And then again it could end up backfiring terribly. 

 

No other gossipy news for now, but there is some drama coming soon.  I’ll either be venting or celebrating.  Past experience tells me it will be the former but hope springs eternal. 

 

BTW, you Yankees need to quit hogging all the water and send some down here to Georgia! 

 

D.

 

199.8

I had to do a double-take on where I was last week, and sure enough I have lost 4 pounds, even after a weekend of not holding back much on the eating and only moderate exercise.

Just to get this out of the way, I did put my ring back on.  Xi’s post on retaining the dented finger look after 7 months was the deciding factor, since this was never meant to be a long term thing.  Whether or not it was passive aggressive bullshit remains to be seen.  I never threatened anything or put conditions out there, I was mostly curious in a bullshit sort of way.  And lately I got more curious as to the fit, since I’ve lost a good 30 pounds since taking the thing off.  And sure enough, it doesn’t seem to really dig in as much.  It’s not slipping off or anything, but it’s loose enough.

While in the local Wal-Mart, I decided to try on some jeans, which I haven’t done in ages.   I’ve been buying Khkis with the “comfort fit” meaning some elastic stretch was included and kept me in the 40″ range even though I was probably closer to a 42.  The 38″ jeans still felt pretty loose and the 36″ jeans felt pretty good but one can’t be too sure with the way jeans shrink.  I put them back on the shelf, as I’m not sure where I’m going to end up with this.  I’m thinking I might like to get down around 185, and maybe 34″ in the waist or so and then beef it up a bit with more muscle.  But I’m not sure how I might go about that with my current exercise routine, which I like…most of the time.

It’s a lot like sex for women who might not necessarily be HL.  I feel reluctance towards doing it, but once I get on the mat, I generally have a pretty good time and enjoy myself and feel a lot better afterwards.  I can always think of other things I should be doing or could be doing sometimes while stepping, but generally end up going for the full hour as I find new songs that I’m keen to master.

On the food side of it,  I’m into fish at the moment.  High protein, low fat and it’s different than poultry.  The talapia comes in these individual serving-sized packets that I can nuke in 6 minutes or so with a small sliced potato and lemon pepper, while Arwyn and the boys eat corn dogs, pizza or whatever other sort of junk they fancy.

Arwyn has not said a lot about my weight loss, but she has noticed.  The people at work have really noticed, although I haven’t had any co-workers try and come on to me.  They are all pretty impressed but at a safe distance.

And I do like my slimmer self.  I kind of turn myself on looking at a much flatter stomach.  In fact, I can barely keep my hands off myself!  Hey, I put a considerable amount of work into this makeover, and know where I’ve come from.  I would definitely do me.  And I do.  Maybe it’s better than I don’t have folks coming on to me, else I would become totally insufferable!

D.